3 Krome Escapees Remain At Large

November 5, 1985|By Joseph Cosco, Staff Writer

MIAMI — Three escapees from the Krome Avenue detention camp remained at large Monday following Thursday`s disturbance and mass breakout at the immigration processing center near the edge of the Everglades.

The camp has been calm in recent days, with armed officers of the elite U.S. Border Patrol Tactical Team keeping watch over the troubled facility, according to Perry Rivkind, district director for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Miami.

``They`re indefinite,`` Rivkind said about the Border Patrol team, which has training in riot control. ``If and when they leave, our own `react team` will be armed.``

Under normal conditions, the detention center is patroled by unarmed immigration detention officers and unarmed contract guards. An INS ``react team`` of more than 20 officers generally handles the occasional disturbances that plague the camp.

Rivkind said that five detainees identified as the ``bad troublemakers`` in Thursday`s disturbance were being transferred to the maximum-security federal penitentiary in Atlanta Monday.

He said that the INS is ``weighing prosecution`` against detainees who attacked immigration officers during the uprising.

There probably will not be any legal action against the 24 escapees who successfully scaled the camp`s 10-foot-high barbed-wire fences, Rivkind said.

Two of the three detainees still missing are Mariel refugees who have criminal records in the United States.

One, a Cuban identified only by the nickname ``Danger,`` was spotted Monday in the Homestead-Florida City area of south Dade County. The others, a Cuban and a Haitian, are presumed to be in the Everglades and were being sought with the help of bloodhounds, Rivkind said.

About 100 of the camp`s 525 detainees are Mariel refugees who committed crimes in the United States, served their prison terms and now are awaiting deportation or deportation hearings.

They are being held indefinitely because Cuban leader Fidel Castro suspended an immigration pact that would have permitted their repatriation to Cuba.

Because of overcrowding in federal and state prisons, many of the Mariel felons are being kept in INS detention centers along with other illegal aliens.

The mix in population has created security problems at Krome and other detention centers while federal immigration officials look for a solution.

``Everyone means well in this but it`s an untenable position,`` Rivkind said. ``The real blame is with Castro. Unfortunately, I can`t put him into Krome.``